1. General description
2. Collected information
3. Customer features
4. Customer search
4.1 by symbol
4.2 by name
4.3 by tax ID number
4.4 by contact person
4.5 by part of name, city, website address
4.6 by query terms
5. Entry
5.1 Manual
5.2 Automatic
5.3 Duplicate prevention
6. Deleting entries
7. Postcodes
8. Contacts with customers
9. Marketing activities
10. Reports and statistics
11. Related topics
1. Description
Customer base management functions supply necessary information for
decision-making. They can be used for:
* marketing (e.g. deciding to whom should a campaign be addressed)
* trade (which offer to send, how high a credit limit should be set)
* debt collection (defining stages of collection and content of notices)
* etc.
2. Collected information
The basic information on customers is accumulated in customer files in
Receivables.
The files create an archive in which the clients are identified by their
symbol, name and tax ID number.
The files contain thematic fields known as tabs.
General data
Basic data
e.g. symbol, name, long name (4 lines x 60 characters),
telephone and address, default warehouse, group, branch etc.
Financial data
Trade data
Additional description (16 lines)
Bank accounts
EDI profile
Our products at the customer
People and addresses
Contact persons
Customer addresses
Accounts
Settled
Unsettled
History of events
History of e-mails
History of contacts/events
History of tasks
Significant dates
Archives of documents
Archive of sales invoices
History of sales orders
Sales offers: headings
Sales offers: items
Internet
Location on Google maps
Customer website
Tabs can also be used for viewing data recorded in other files and
transaction sets: settled and unsettled accounts (receivables), history
of offers, orders, invoices, e-mails, contacts etc.
All customers are collected in one file regardless of their status as
prospective, active or inactive clients etc. This makes it easier to search
through and manage customer information.
The number of presented files can be narrowed down with the use of filters
(terms). This makes it possible to exclude clients marked as inactive or
blocked.
3. Customer features
Customer files contains information on the profile, field of activity, size,
business model, organizational structure, position in a structure, client
source, financial terms of cooperation, terms of shipment, NACE information
etc.
Most of the features are defined in dictionaries in AD: Tables > Customer
features.
These features can be used to search customers (using query) and create
reports of sales, purchases, marketing activities, correspondence etc.
4. Customer search
The list can be viewed (scrolled) by positions, pages, you can go to the top
and bottom of the list. The list can be sorted according to the symbol,
customer name or tax ID number.
You can perform a search according to all or part of characters from the
fields of symbol, short name, full name, tax ID number, contact person
and customer's company seat.
4.1 By symbol
The symbol can be input in full 6 characters or partially, followed by
pressing key <F2/F3>.
The list is displayed in ascending order according to customer symbols.
4.2 By name
Recommended method:
1. switch to the name field using <Tab> key
2. enter partial name, e.g. smith+ted and press <F3> key
The program will find e.g. Smith Industries Limited and Ted Smith
The <F3> key searches text for strings of characters.
The search is not case-sensitive.
The list is displayed in ascending order according to customer names.
4.3 By tax ID number
You can provide a full number or a partial number followed by <F2/F3> key.
Do not separate digits with hyphens [-] as they will not be included in
the search.
E.g. in order to find tax ID no. 123-00-08-431, input 12300 <F3>
instead of 123-00 <F3>
The list is displayed in ascending order according to tax ID numbers.
4.4 By contact person
Input part of name or surname and press <F2/F3>.
The list is displayed in ascending order according to contact person e-mail
addresses.
4.5 By part of name, city, website
When searching customers and suppliers by the name field, the program will
also search for the string in the city and website fields.
Specify part of name and the city and press <F3>, and the program will
search through customers from that city. E.g., electr+warsaw <F3>:
the program will display a list including e.g. Electric Enterprises Warsaw,
Electro Holdings Warsaw.
4.6 By query terms
Query provides an effective search method which involves building filters
for any field (column) in a file.
5. Entry
5.1 Manual
Manual entry requires filling the information in subsequent screens which
show up in Receivables > Customers > Customer Master > Entry.
Entries can be added on the fly anywhere in the program where <F2> is an
available option for the customer file.
Adding entries on the fly is enabled only for those users who are authorized
to use the function in the first place (in its default location: Receivables
> Customers > Customer Master > Entry).
The <F8> key is used to speed up the entry process. All you need to do is
fill in the key basic fields. On pressing <F8> the remaining fields will be
filled with standard values and the file will be saved.
Another option is to use sample customer data which will be treated in
the exact same way as standard values would be. The symbol of a sample
customer is specified in parameters of the Receivables system.
5.2 Automatic
Automatic entry is performed through import of customer files.
It is recommended that the imported data be saved in the common CSV format.
5.3 Duplicate prevention
When adding customer file entries, it is important to avoid adding the same
customer twice.
Duplicates are difficult to remove once they are associated with transaction
data such as sales invoices.
The software offers solutions to resolve this problem, but users should also
be aware of it and take certain precautions.
The following mechanisms exist for the prevention of duplicate entries:
* Checking tax ID number; each has to be unique. You will not be able to
add a new customer with a number which is already present in the system.
* Looking for a duplicate street address. The software will ensure that
there is no previous entry with the same seat address (city and street).
* Manual checking by searching for characteristic words from customer name,
e.g. <dairy+cooperative>
and pressing <F3> (search for specified characters)
In general, it is recommended that only one person in a company be
authorized to add new customer entries. Such person would be responsible for
the integrity of the customer file. If this is not a viable option, another
idea is to perform a periodic check of file changes. This information can be
accessed through the Significant Dates tab and the log, which contains
specific records of who added and changed what and when.
Another way to do search for duplicate entries is to create a report ordered
by city and street address and then look for consecutive double entries.
6. Deletion
A customer entry can be deleted from Customer Master if no associated
information has been entered in any of the remaining data sets, inc.:
* orders
* accounts
* deliveries and pending invoices (Supplier Master)
* contact persons
* extra shipping addresses
Generally, it is recommended to remove customers from file only if
absolutely necessary.
Inactive customers can be blocked.
Indicator: Blocked = Y/N
Y Customer is blocked
No transactions can be added. No invoices, notes, orders, payments
or warehouse documents can be associated with this customer. The additional
description fields can provide information on who blocked the customer,
when and why.
N Customer is not blocked
Another method is to add customers to the >inactive< group and build a query
to exclude this group from choice lists.
7. Postcodes
Trawers software contains a pre-defined list of postcodes (currently only
Polish postcodes available). Users can add additional postcodes to the
table.
Postcodes are used during entry and entry editing in customer and supplier
Masters.
After specifying a postcode from the list of available postcodes, a city
and a street address will be suggested.
After specifying city and street address, a postcode will be suggested.
8. Contacts with customers
Contacts with customers (and contact attempts) are recorded in the Contact
Manager module. This is also where future contacts are scheduled. Upon
start-up of the software, the program will notify the user about their
scheduled contacts for the day. Contacts can also be delegated to other
users.
9. Marketing activities
Contact Manager includes a table with marketing campaigns.
In the table we specify a campaign symbol, which can later be associated
with contacts in order to enable tracking of campaign activities and costs.
10. Reports and statistics
Sales reports --> Reports
History of contacts with customers
Today's Contacts
Setting dates for future contacts with customers
Stages in a sales process (sales funnel)
Cost analysis of business processes
Odds of sales
Statistics:
* How many customers were added ?
* How many contacts were made ?
Shows trade activities in particular time periods.
* How many customers were issued an invoice ?
* How many e-mails were recorded ?
Shows the number of sent and received e-mails
* How many e-mails are in a mailbox ?
Shows the number of e-mails per each particular mailbox
* How many e-mails are marked by a user ?
Shows the distribution of activity between users in e-mail
sending/receiving
* How many e-mails are associated with a particular customer ?
Shows the distribution of customer activity in e-mail contacts
11. Related topics
* Customer management in a multi-division company
--> Companies and branches
* Authorization to add and review customer file entries
* Authorization to review financial data (tab)
* Authorization to add extra ship-to addresses (tab)
--> System of authorization
--> General and user parameters
--> History (log) and monitoring of operations
* Use of the inbuilt e-mail client for contacts
--> E-mail client
* Automatic Customer Master Entry
--> Import and export of data
* Sending serial mail according to own definitions
--> Sample documents
* Extra ship-to addresses
--> Customer addresses
* Business models